Cosmo Sez…Don’t Meth Around!

No, I’m not lisping…this is a therious—I mean, a serious issue. Maybe you’re tired of hearing about it, but maybe you’re more tired of watching people you care about waste away to nothing. Maybe you, yourself are wasting away to nothing. Meth has affected many lives, including my own.

I was a baby boomer, and therefore I was also a hippie love child, and therefore I experimented with all kinds of mind-altering substances. I mean, back then…who didn’t? Some of them, like peyote and “magic” mushrooms, were actually “all-naturale” and have been used throughout time by American Indians and others to have “spiritual visions.” It was all about expanding your mind and opening up your “third eye.” It was all about taking a trip and never leaving the farm. It was about stimulating your creative side. It was, for all intents and purposes, a positive experience, oddly enough. I’m not endorsing this behavior, but I’ve never met anyone addicted to peyote or “shrooms.”

Now, fast forward to present times and the present drugs of choice. Have you noticed that the “new” drugs, especially in the gay lifestyle, seem to be based more around a sexual experience than a spiritual one? Drugs like “X” (ecstasy), “G,” “K” and “Tina” (still meth) are common for this purpose. They are often dangerously used in combination. Why, I even know people that won’t have sex without first getting high! When did sex become so boring that we have to “spike” it up with chemicals? Also, are we having sex with people that we would never have sex with unless we were high? These questions can go on and on. Anyway, the point is this…of all the substances I have encountered from hippie days of old to the modern manufactured drugs, I have never seen anything more devastating than crystal meth. It takes much more than it gives. One more particularly important fact is that meth is not physically addictive—it is emotionally addictive and only 8 percent of all those addicted will recover. For more sobering facts regarding this drug, you can check out www.lifeormeth.com.

As I mentioned earlier, this has affected my life too. Not only have I witnessed friends destroying their lives with it, but I also lost a partner of nine years who got addicted and started making very poor choices. I watched a bright, talented and sincere man turn into someone that I didn’t know or even want to know anymore. Everything became about self-gratification, lies, infidelity and acting out intense sexual acts that coincide, coincidentally, with childhood abuse that occurred in a family where both parents were alcoholics, and all four children became alcoholics or drug addicts. Hmmmm…maybe there’s a pattern here! It’s not that I’m bitter, only heartbroken. I miss the person I once loved. When you are on meth, the people that love you become the “enemy” because they don’t want you to do it. The addiction to the drug is so strong that it becomes more important to you than your own family. After all, they are getting in your way from doing what you really want: meth. Is it really worth the price? I personally don’t think so.